Chinese Cruciverbalists?

I'm a crossword puzzle fan. I think it must be genetic since my Grandma works the crossword puzzle in her newspaper everyday and my dad frequently likes a crossword puzzle challenge too. One of my favorite things to do when I'm home in the summers is to wake up in the morning, get some coffee and a bagel, turn on the Today show (which I usually end up ignoring) and sit at the kitchen table and work the daily crossword puzzle from the Indianapolis Star. The Star's crosswords seem to be right at my level--hard enough to challenge me, but not so hard that I get frustrated and start to feel like an idiot. And, if I ever get stuck, my dad is always more than willing to show me how much he knows by putting in a word or two to "help" me. Dad and mom even sent me several crossword puzzles in the last box they mailed me.

I've always assumed that crossword puzzles in Chinese would be impossible due to the fact that words are usually comprised of only one or two characters rather than letters that could overlap. A few times, I've used online crossword puzzle generators to make puzzles in English for my students since I thought they'd enjoy trying a word puzzle in English that they can't do in Chinese. But, not too long ago, I saw my first Chinese crossword puzzle in the back of the "Student Diary" that the school gave us (for the 30th anniversary, we all got free HHU t-shirts, caps, bags, and student planners).

I don't know enough Chinese to actually work the puzzle, but from what I can tell it seems like the clues are mostly about famous people, well-known companies, and city names . . . most of which use 3 - 5 Chinese characters. I was rather intrigued by this finding and am going to keep my eye out for more crossword puzzles in Chinese.